Despite being delayed by two years due to an unexpected pandemic, The Octavian Singers are delighted to present Women Composers: A Celebration - a collection of music by the underrepresented female composers from the Middle Ages to the present day.
March is the month which celebrates International Women’s Day. This isn’t one of those card-manufacturers’ attempts at making you buy a card and goodies for “someone special”. The earliest Women’s Day observance was 1909 in New York, followed by a conference in 1910, International Women’s Day in 1911 in central Europe, 1913 in Russia and a general consensus that it would be a good thing to fix the date as March 8th for everyone.
It wasn’t all about protests and demands for rights and votes as many of the events were marking the achievements of women. This is what our concert is about - we will be performing music written by women which has been neglected. Here, we we aim to introduce you to some of the women whose music we’ll be singing, in the hope that you might be tempted to hear their music!
The first group three composers are nuns who composed music to sing in their convents, and therefore never expected it to be heard outside their walls. Hildegard of Bingen lived from 1098 to 1179 and was a Benedictine nun in the Rhineland. She founded two convents and wrote many scriptural texts, including Ordo Virtutum, which is an early form of a morality play and from which one of our pieces is taken.
Sulpitia Cesis was born in Modena, Italy in 1577 and entered the Augustinian convent there, famous for its music, aged 16. The music she wrote was for performance by the nuns, even though it seems to have tenor and bass parts (these are most likely to have been played on instruments). We’ll be singing her Stabat Mater, a hymn for Lent.
Our third nun is Maria Xaveria Peruchona born around 1652 in the Italian town of Gozzano and who also entered a convent aged 16 - this Ursuline convent in Galliate allowed her to study music. She was of poor health and died around 1709. The piece we will sing is Cessate Tympana and is similar in style to works by Monteverdi.
Two of the composers featured have surnames we’re sure you’ll recognise, as they are related to well-known male musicians! The first of these is Fanny Hensel, who was born Fanny Mendelssohn and was the older sister of more famous Felix. Both studied music at a very early age as their mother had studied with Kirnberger who had himself studied with J S Bach. By age 13, Fanny could play all 48 preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Klavier of J S Bach. However, her father thought that although she excelled in music, it should only be a hobby for her, not a profession.
In 1827 she married a court painter, Wilhelm Hensel, and he was supportive of her continuing to perform and compose music despite being unmusical himself. From 1831 onwards, Fanny masterminded the series of concerts held in the Mendelssohn family home and occasionally appeared as a performer there. Her only known public performance was in 1838 when she played her brother’s piano concerto.
Fanny continued to compose and only in 1846 did she publish a set of songs under her own name. The pieces we will sing come from Gartenlieder which were published in 1847. Sadly, this was the year in which she died, following complications from a stroke. Her brother died only 6 months later.
The other composer we’d like to introduce is Clara Schumann, who was married to Robert Schumann. Clara had been born Wieck and had a prestigious concert career as a pianist from age 11, as her father was himself a professional musician and he was ambitious for her. In 1828, she met Robert after a performance, who was at that point studying law. Robert began to study music with Friedrich Wieck and asked permission to marry Clara, but was refused. The pair eventually sued her father, and were allowed to marry in 1840.Unfortunately, her music-making then took rather a back seat and she kept house and brought up 8 children while only dabbling in composition.
By 1854 Robert was suffering symptoms of syphilis and was admitted to an asylum, and her friends Joachim and Brahms encouraged her to play and compose again in earnest. From 1856 onwards Clara began touring as a concert pianist and continued her musical life for a further 30 years.
In 1878 she was appointed piano tutor to a new conservatoire in Frankfurt and was unsurprisingly the only woman on the faculty until she retired in 1892. She died in 1896. In our upcoming concert, we will perform a short round by Clara as well as two pieces written for a birthday party for Robert.
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